ARCHIVE - AUTUMN 2011

Samuh

Finchley - Autumn eUpdate

Finchley - Autumn Term

Samuh time is a time when bhaio and beno across all age groups come together and spend time collectively participating in a range of activities. The Samuh Team have focused their sessions around this fundamental idea of being together, which is complemented well by the Shishukunj belief that ‘Apre Badha Ek Che’ (We are all one). There have been many memorable sessions so far this term; below are just a handful of things we have managed so far…

Our pulsating Bhajan and Dhoon sessions have been full of energy and vibrancy, with each and every baalak taking part and immersing themselves in the sessions. We have also had a large number of young, upcoming musicians starting to play in our prathna sessions, which has also been very pleasing to see.

Continuing with the theme of togetherness and family, the Samuh Team have had various buadhiks with simple morals linked to helping others, taking care of those around you and working together. These well known favourites have been presented with great twists, such as the story of ‘The Bateta noo Shak’ instead of ‘The giant turnip soup’.

Earlier this month, we also had a fantastic art based Navratri ECA. Having been inspired by young Rishibhai Shah’s baudhik, in which he made various murtis simply from blu tak, the baalako were all challenged to use their creative side to produce their own clay models of various components of the aarti thaali. Following this, the baalako were then able to paint their clay models and arrange them onto a dasta aarti thaali. These thaalis were then used during the Navratri Aarti with baalako standing in their dastas, holding proudly their decorated dasta aarti thaalis.

Shishu Gooch

For this term our main theme was arts. We decided that for Shishu Gooch it will be a good idea to include different art from around the world every week. Whether it would be painting aboriginal art from Australia or even going back in tome making pictures of cavemen. for the first couple of weeks we mainly concentrated on getting the new balaako to fit in as quickly as possble. For the our first art session we decided to have an aboriginal art session which was lead by Ektaben who did an amazing session and did well getting the most out of the balaako. Our second art session was to do with cavemen art, in this session we wanted the balaako to firstly draw what they thought cavemen art was like and then secondly to draw after they had got the information on what cavemen art was. This session had great output from the balaako as their pictures were absolutely amazing. and finally our most recent art session we had was about writing a poem about themselves. they did a brilliant job from this as you can see by some of the brilliant pieces of work (Please do not touch the art).

Giju Gooch

For Giju gooch(8 and 9 year olds), our focus has been to delve deep into the world of literature, art and drama in line with the term's theme of 'Arts'. Our first two sessions were focused on acting and mime, where we tried to become the characters we were pretending to be by recreating certain scenes from well known Disney films such as Peter Pan and by asking the baalko to act the scenes out in slow motion, fast forward and even rewind. We then moved onto poetry, learning about the power of rhyming and how to create nonsense poems. The baalko then wrote some of their own poetry with the aim being for them to use what they had learnt about rhyming and to focus all their ideas down onto paper. More recently, our last session was about the creation of origami, using the paper swans and boats to show a more practical side of art. The baalko all picked up the technique very quickly and and were very enthusiastic to create some of their own great pieces of artwork, which you can see below. Throughout all the sessions, we have seen all the baalko becoming more confident with what they are doing and in the last session, it was great to see the baalko helping each other out with their different problems with the origami, a great example of the teamwork within the gooch.

Gandhi Gooch

Ghandi gooch have dived into the arts and crafts theme of the term with a passion. From experiencing drama and acting out Alice in Wonderland to creating their own colourful t-shirts for Diwali and even dancing to Garba music these half term has been full of a variety of activities that has shown the talents of many baalako emerging. The days have been balanced by playing a variety of physical games which has had the Gooch improve it's overall tactical awareness. The baalako have played a variety of new games ranging from Chinese rounders to Indian dodgeball. We have really seen a growth in a number of the baalako with an improvement in confidence and teamwork coming from both the arts and drama and the games sessions.

Devchand Gooch

This Term, Devchandgooch (Ages 11-13) have worked on their creative sides by making Murtis to place on their dasta Aarti Thalis.
They also had the chance to gain a small insight into the world of photography. They have learnt about the different parts of the camera, how to take a perfect photograph and even got the chance to take photographs with professional cameras. Devchandgooch also had the privilege to learn basic Mandarin and by the end, they were able to have simple conversations between themselves. In this age-group, they have a 45 minute Talim session (training) in which they are able to discuss about the different aspects of life. This term, they have learnt about the basic history of Shishukunj, what Shishukunj means to them, the changes that children go through from birth to the age of 8. More recently, they have discussed why Prathna is impotant to them and why they do Prathna. Since the beginning of the term, we have had a fun-filled time, packed with memorable activities and learning new skills. We hope to continue this high energy and good spirit for the rest of the year!